


Pretty as a Peach(y Keen)

by SuperBlondie



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Cute, Established Relationship, Farmer Chanyeol, Farmer Kyungsoo, Fluff, M/M, Short & Sweet, Slice of Life, Sweet, Wow, just very soft and sweet, not much to say about this, soft, that's a tag, yeehaw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 23:16:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20379742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperBlondie/pseuds/SuperBlondie
Summary: "I coulda said I love youCoulda wrote you a line or twoBaby, all I know to doSpeak right from the heart"Quitting his nine-to-five and taking over his uncle’s farm was the second-best decision he ever made in his life. The best was proposing to his high school sweetheart the day after they graduated.





	Pretty as a Peach(y Keen)

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the [Mood Board Bingo!](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/moodboardbingo) It's for [moodboard 18!](https://twitter.com/killmeDO/status/1165389669518831616?s=20)
> 
> So this is just something soft and sweet! I recommend listening to Stuck Like Glue by Sugarland while reading this (which is where the lyrics in the summary are from), Aarushi reccomends listening to Lover by Taylor Swift.
> 
> I don't have much to say about this than that I really enjoyed writing it! It kept me occupied on the flight back to college and I think it's just really cute.
> 
> As always, a big thank you to [Aarushi](https://twitter.com/Aarushi_c18) for being the best beta in the world!

Kyungsoo slings the empty burlap sack over his shoulder, the fabric scratchy against his bare skin. The summer sun is sneaking in through the cracks in the wood of the old shed and Kyungsoo can see the bits of cheese Chanyeol had left for the field mice in the corner. He sighs because he knows it’s just going to encourage more and more mice to take up residence in their shed, but he leaves the cheese where it is.

Chanyeol wants to feed the mice; Kyungsoo’s never been good at denying Chanyeol anything.

The shed door creaks closed behind him on squeaky hinges, another thing to add to his never-ending list of to-dos. Fix the shed door, repaint the barn, tend the berry garden, the tasks keep piling up one after another.

Kyungsoo loves it, working from sun up to sun down on tasks that have a tangible outcome, like a blueberry pie that lasts little more than a day because neither of them can control themselves when it comes to sweets. Tasks that can be put off for another day without Karen from HR having a meltdown.

Quitting his nine-to-five and taking over his uncle’s farm was the second-best decision he ever made in his life. The best was proposing to his high school sweetheart the day after they graduated.

Kyungsoo smiles at the memory of sliding a little velvet box across Chanyeol’s parents’ kitchen table, cutting Chanyeol off in the middle of worried ramble about what would happen to them, asking what their plan was now that they were graduated and expected to go to college and become real adults. _Well, my plan is the same it was before we graduated, marryin’ you as soon as you’ll let me._

Chanyeol had just stared at the box with those big, beautiful brown eyes, cheeks turning redder with every passing second. When Kyungsoo reached over and opened the box up, showed him the ring he’d been saving up for since Chanyeol asked him out during P.E. freshman year, he’d just nodded, lower lip wobbling.

Everyone who knew about the ring had called him crazy, said he was too young to know what love was, what forever meant. And now, Kyungsoo can admit that they were right; he hadn’t known shit about making an adult relationship work. But he knew that he loved Chanyeol, that he was the best thing that would ever happen to him, and that there wasn’t a single thing in the world that could make him give up on their relationship.

Seven years since their wedding, and they’re still here, rings kept safe on chains around their necks because they do so much work with their hands. Seven years since their wedding, and Kyungsoo still can’t get enough of his husband.

“Chanyeol,” he calls, one hand shading his eyes so he can scan the horizon for a too-tall silhouette.

It pops up in the middle of the flower garden Chanyeol hasn’t let him near recently, stating that he has a secret project. It’s bees. Chanyeol’s setting up for his first hive of bees. He’s been bookmarking different articles about the benefits of bee-keeping to their shared Google account, and their recommendations on YouTube are the workings of a bee-fixated madman.

How he thought he’d hide the sudden influx of packages of bee-keeping equipment at the post office, Kyungsoo doesn’t understand. _Kyungsoo _is the one who picks up their mail.

Kyungsoo doesn’t really care either way, because bees would be good for their crops and Chanyeol’s precious flowers. Would be good for Chanyeol to get a new hobby too, because he’s been getting a little interested in cooking and Kyungsoo can’t handle him in the kitchen anymore. He’s not a bad chef or anything, just distracting, unbearably cute when he’s reading the recipe or focusing on making sure his knife-cuts are consistent. If bees get him out of Kyungsoo’s kitchen, then so be it.

And if the bees make Chanyeol happy, make him light up the way he does when he’s exploring a new hobby, even better.

“Yeah,” Chanyeol yells back, “something wrong?”

“Gonna go take care of the orchard, you still wantin’ to help?”

The orchard looms beyond Chanyeol’s flower garden, fruit trees towering over the farm, reaching for the sky. The trees are Kyungsoo’s family’s pride and joy. Generations of planting the seeds from the best tasting fruit and watching saplings sprout pretty green leaves have given way to some of the best fruit in the county – the _state._

And it’s Chanyeol’s favorite place on the farm, flower garden included. When it comes to the crop fields, he relegates himself to taking care of the livestock and berry bushes; but every summer and fall he scrambles up into sweet-smelling branches and picks entire trees clean, fills baskets with picture-perfect fruit.

If he climbs back down with sticky sweet lips and a pretty, sugar-high smile, well Kyungsoo doesn’t have the heart to do anything but kiss the evidence off his mouth.

Now, the man lets out a holler of excitement, “I’ll meet you there! Don’t touch the peach trees without me!”

Kyungsoo nods with a grin and leaves his husband to finish up whatever bee related project he’s working on. He would never harvest the peaches without Chanyeol. The burlap sack on Kyungsoo’s back is for Chanyeol to take up into the branches with him, save the peaches he really wants from the baskets meant for the market. They’re his favorite fruit and one of the biggest money-makers for the farm, peach trees taking up a third of the orchard.

The summer sun is nearly scorching as it beats down on Kyungsoo’s back. Sweat drips down his spine and Kyungsoo groans at how badly he’s going to smell by sunset.

Baekhyun has joked about how sexy it must be to watch Kyungsoo work up a sweat around the farm, all hard-earned muscles and tan skin. Chanyeol laughs every time, but Kyungsoo laughs harder because he knows for a fact that Chanyeol _can’t stand_ sweat outside the bedroom. He says it’s smelly and gross and, on the days Kyungsoo spends inside the sweltering barn, if_ you go get in the shower right now I’ll join you_. As if Kyungsoo is some freak that doesn’t take extra care to not smell like horse shit.

Kyungsoo’s likely going to be herded into the shower tonight too. He’d been taking care of their few dairy cows early in the morning because Chanyeol was busy gathering eggs from the henhouse, being chased by the hens and chasing them in return. The cows are very fond of Chanyeol, loving how he coos while he milks them, pets them like dogs, and brings treats when it’s time for the vet to come by for a check-up.

They are not very fond of anyone else. And they made their opinion of Kyungsoo very clear when they spit cud all over his shirt and resigned him to spending the rest of the day shirtless because he didn’t feel like running back up to the house for a new one.

Kyungsoo pushes the orchard gate open and holds it there when he hears loud, galloping footsteps behind him. He looks back to see Chanyeol, hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, face red from work and the heat. He smiles that big, pretty smile that gets him out of all kinds of trouble – the smile that makes Kyungsoo glad he locked Chanyeol down before the world wised up and realized how gorgeous he is.

“Hey, baby,” he leans down for a quick kiss. “Where’s your shirt?”

“Your cows weren’t happy that I was the one taking care of them today.” Kyungsoo sticks a thumb out to the clothesline, where his freshly soaked shirt is waving in the breeze. “Least it was from their mouths and not their other ends this time,” he shrugs when Chanyeol frowns and puts his hands on his hips, eyes narrowing as he turns to look at the barn.

“I’ll have to have another talk with them about this.” Chanyeol takes the burlap sack and throws it over his own shoulder. His forehead wrinkles in thought and Kyungsoo has to grab his free hand before he goes to gnaw on his thumbnail, kissing the back of his hand instead.

There was a time when Kyungsoo would’ve laughed at the idea of Chanyeol having an honest-to-Jesus discussion with their dairy cows. And then Chanyeol dragged him out to the barn, sat him down on a bale of hay, and gave the cows a very passionate lecture about why it was wrong to assault the man that helped take care of them. Kyungsoo’ll only ever admit it to Chanyeol, but he’s pretty sure the cows understood every word he said. They kept glancing over at Kyungsoo, who was sporting a nasty bruise on his back from one of Betsy’s back hooves; Betsy looked damn near ashamed when Chanyeol lifted up Kyungsoo’s shirt and showed her what she’d done.

And so now, as Chanyeol mumbles to himself about respect and kindness, Kyungsoo just holds his hand tight in his own and walks at his side. Just happy to be with his husband, happy that they get to spend every day together on the farm.

When he’d first taken over the farm, he’d told Chanyeol that he would understand if he wanted to stay in the city with his well-paying job. He couldn’t expect his husband to just pick up and leave because he decided he was sick of working in an office, wasting his days doing something he didn’t enjoy. Chanyeol had gotten his dream job, working with some of the best music producers and artists in the nation; Kyungsoo could never be so selfish as to ask him to leave that behind. _Don’t you get it? _You’re _my dream._

They’d moved to the farm three weeks later and never looked back. Chanyeol still does some producing work from home and takes trips to the city every month or so, but when asked, he calls himself a farmer.

“What’re you thinkin’ about,” Chanyeol asks.

Kyungsoo remembers being young and stingy with affection, loving Chanyeol but not wanting anyone to know just how far gone he was, Chanyeol included. Young Kyungsoo was a goddamn moron.

“You.” Chanyeol goes redder than a ladybug, flush from the heat deepening and spreading down his neck. Kyungsoo laughs. “Walked right into that one, sweetheart.”

Chanyeol grumbles and shifts the burlap sack under his armpit to free up his hand to rub at his cheeks as if it’ll make the blush go away. He tries to pull his other hand free from Kyungsoo’s grasp, but it’s held tight. He groans, but his smile is nothing but pleased, happy, that tingling feeling from being complimented by someone you love.

They reach the peach trees at the far end of the orchard, all of them ripe, all of them needing to be harvested soon. Kyungsoo knows they won’t finish today, likely won’t even get through a third, but he hopes it’ll be done by the end of the week so that their seventh wedding anniversary isn’t overshadowed by peaches.

Minseok and Jongdae have agreed to come by and help in exchange for having first go at the pumpkins come Halloween; there’s a new farmhand starting tomorrow too, some local college kid named Sehun who needed a steady, good-paying job and didn’t mind manual labor. Kyungsoo’s not sure how he’ll do at first, but he’s got Chanyeol’s seal of approval and that’s all Kyungsoo really needs to know that Sehun do just fine once he’s settled.

For now, it’s just the two of them, Chanyeol scrambling up into the branches of the first tree with his burlap sack and little giggles about how good the harvest is this year, Kyungsoo setting up all the mechanical lifts with platforms that hold their fruit baskets. Then, he climbs up onto the last of the lifts, boosts himself up until he’s at perfect fruit-picking height, and gets to work.

They work until sundown, a good sixth of all the trees picked clean. Kyungsoo’s body aches, but it’s a nice ache, one that comes with a job well done.

He loads up all the baskets they’ve filled into the bed of the pick-up truck they keep in the orchard for just this purpose and drives them to storage building. He leaves them there in the bed of the truck, too tired to unload them.

That’ll be Sehun’s first job, far away from the cows so that the farmhand isn’t scared away by belligerent bovines.

Kyungsoo walks back to the orchard and finds Chanyeol lying in the grass beneath his favorite peach tree. It’s the biggest, the one that’s once dropped a peach right on Jongdae’s head and nearly gave him a concussion. The story doesn’t have anything to do with why Chanyeol loves it so much, but it’s still one of the funniest things Kyungsoo’s ever seen.

No, Chanyeol loves this tree because it’s where they got married, Kyungsoo’s uncle insisting they hold the wedding on his farm to save money and setting up the arch underneath the tree that gave the most shade so neither groom would overheat and die before they could get hitched.

Every anniversary since taking over the farm, they have had lunch under this tree, eating sandwiches and ice cream because it’s too hot for a real meal. And that’s fine, because it just means Kyungsoo always gets to make part of his anniversary gift a stupid extravagant, home-cooked dinner. Eaten mostly in bed because Chanyeol’s anniversary gift always ends up with them beneath the sheets anyway.

Kyungsoo comes to a stop in front of Chanyeol. He gently nudges his husband’s side with the toe of his boot and grins at the ticklish little giggle it earns him. Chanyeol reaches up and takes his hand, tugging him down onto the grass beside him.

He goes easy, collapsing on his side on the ground even as dirt sticks to his sweaty skin. Chanyeol stripped his shirt off long ago as well. It’s somewhere under another tree, but Kyungsoo isn’t too worried about it. He likes Chanyeol just as he is. Even now, sweaty, dirty, and not smelling all that great. Hard work has given them both more than a little definition, and Kyungsoo rubs a hand over Chanyeol’s stomach with a smirk.

“I’m so tired,” Chanyeol whines. Kyungsoo hums in sympathy. He watches as his husband looks at him out of the corner of his eye and grins a little grin. “Carry me home? I could really use the help of a _big, strong man _like you.”

“You think you’re so cute,” Kyungsoo shakes his head.

Chanyeol squeaks when he pinches the skin of his stomach and slaps his hand away with a pout. “I _know _I’m cute. You tell me so every single day.”

“I’ve created a monster,” Kyungsoo laments. It’s hard to lament when he can’t stop smiling though, leaning forward to press a kiss to Chanyeol’s lips. They taste like peaches and Kyungsoo can feel the leftover sticky residue of fruit juice. The burlap sack resting against the tree trunk is stuffed full to bursting.

Kyungsoo wonders if he really has created a monster, and then decides he doesn’t care either way. So long as Chanyeol’s at his side, he finds he doesn’t care at all.

The sunset brings a cool breeze blowing through the trees and drying off their sweat. It’s not dark enough yet that the fireflies have come out, but the moon coming up over the horizon makes the entire orchard feel serene, tranquil. Sleepy, if the way Chanyeol yawns so hard his jaw pops is any indication. Kyungsoo chuckles and settles himself flush against his husband, ignoring his whines about sweat and dirt.

“Just let me hold you for a sec,” he murmurs and kisses just under Chanyeol’s ear. Chanyeol shivers and squirms in a way that usually leads to the two of them sprinting back to the house and their nice, comfortable bed, but Kyungsoo’s so exhausted that all he can do is snuggle a little closer. “You smell like peaches, you little thief.”

Chanyeol scoffs, but his eyes are bright and cheerful when he meets Kyungsoo’s gaze. “I’m not a thief! I own half these peaches, so I should be allowed to eat as many as I want.”

When Kyungsoo opens his mouth to tell him about profits and how he offered to designate a tree just for Chanyeol but was _refused_, he’s cut short by a hand on his ass. “What do you think you’re doing, Mr. I’m-too-tired-to-even-walk-myself-home?”

“You know, I think I technically own half of this peach too, marriage certificate and all. _And _it’s my favorite peach to eat.” Kyungsoo groans and lets his head drop to Chanyeol’s collarbone as the man bursts into laughter at his own joke. Like he doesn’t make it at least once a day whenever they’re tending to the peach trees. “Oh, c’mon! It’s funny!”

“It was funny the first fifty times, babe.” Kyungsoo tries to level his husband with an unimpressed look, but it falters under the weight of that damn pretty boy smile. “Fine. Go ahead. Make as many jokes about my ass as you want, I’ll make some pancakes in the morning and return the favor.”

Kyungsoo laughs into Chanyeol’s chest as the man sputters out protests. “Not fair! I was _complimenting _you, not making fun!”

“And how do you know I’m not complimenting you?”

Chanyeol pouts. “Because you’re calling my ass flat. No one likes a flat ass.”

And Kyungsoo just shakes his head and placates his husband with a few sticky-sweet, love-sweet kisses. “Well, _I _happen to love your flat ass. I thought you would’ve figured that out by now, considering I put a ring on it.” It’s still light enough out to see Chanyeol’s cheeks turn pink, a little smile on his face as he reaches up to play with the wedding ring resting in the hollow of his throat. Kyungsoo reaches for his own ring on reflex.

He gives Chanyeol one more kiss before pushing himself to his feet. “We should get home and shower before the sweat permanently sticks us together.” Chanyeol nods and stands on his own before taking Kyungsoo’s outstretched hand.

Their fingers fit together perfectly, just the way they always have. Chanyeol swings their hands back and forth, humming a tune to himself. He’s beautiful like this, sunset a background illuminating his profile. It’s not really news, though, Chanyeol’s always beautiful.

“Baby,” Kyungsoo calls as he gives a little tug on Chanyeol’s arm.

“Huh,” Chanyeol pauses his song and turns, blinking curiously, “somethin’ wrong?”

Kyungsoo shakes his head. Their house is just up ahead, one of the cats that have congregated to the farm in search of mice to hunt sitting on the porch railing. Chanyeol’s hand is warm in his, another day ending with his husband at his side, the next sure to start the same way. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, nothing at all. And so, he looks up at Chanyeol, sees the same boy he fell in love with nearly a decade ago, and smiles.

Chanyeol smiles with one side of his mouth, eye brows quirking up the way they do when he’s confused. “Then what?”

“I just love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you liked it, please leave a kudos and a comment! You can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/killmeDO) and [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/killmeDO) Sometimes I talk about what I'm working on next and post snippets! I'd love to hear from you <3


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